Woodard v. State

Morton, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. Appellant was convicted of armed robbery by a jury sitting in the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County and sentenced to a term of twenty years. In this appeal he contends (1) that his motion for judgment of acquittal should have been granted; (2) that the trial judge erred in his instructions to the jury; and (3) that statements made by the state’s attorney in the course of his final argument warranted the granting of a mistrial. The record indicates that appellant and several others entered a music store at approximately 3:30 p.m. on October 23, 1971.

According to the store manager, who was behind the counter talking to a customer, he recognized the appellant among the group because he had previously seen him participating in “Golden Gloves fights.” He stated that the men looked at records and albums and then, while he was still talking to the customer, “the next thing I knew somebody put a gun up to my head and told me to come in the back.” He was ordered to knock on the office door of the owner of the shop and when admitted, he and the owner were hit on the head with a pistol, were bound and gagged, and approximately $2,300 was taken from the office safe. The manager further testified that at some point after the men entered the store ³⁰² two or three of them donned stocking masks. As a result, he could not identify the person who ordered him to the back office nor could he identify the person or persons who hit him and the manager on the head or those persons in the office who bound and gagged him. When asked specifically about appellant’s presence in the store, he stated that he observed appellant looking at posters on the wall and that he had been in the store seven or eight minutes when one of the men, whom he could not identify, placed the gun at his head.

He stated that there were five or six customers in the store at the time of the holdup and that when he was able to free himself and return from the back office to the front of the store, no one was present except a customer who was lying on the floor in a pool of blood. It was then that he tripped an alarm which brought the police to the store in approximately ten minutes. The manager advised the police that he knew the appellant only by the name of “Woody”. When shown appellant’s photograph, however, he identified him as having been in the store at the time of the robbery.

When asked about appellant’s participation in the robbery, he stated, “I saw him come in the store just before the robbery but that was all I saw after the guy put the gun to my head and took me back.” The owner was unable to identify any of the participants in the robbery. A police officer testified that appellant was arrested in Washington, D. C., waived extradition and, after being “advised of his constitutional rights”, was interrogated. According to the officer, “I again questioned him reference to his involvement in the armed robbery of the Southern Music Company and specifically questioned him as to the identities of the people whom I had not arrested, and he continued to deny his involvement in the crime, stated that he was innocent of the crime. However, during the interrogation, or sometime during the interrogation he stated to me that he had heard through a friend of his, whom he refused to identify, that the ³⁰³ manager of the record shop had fingered him as being one of the persons responsible for the robbery.

I attempted to delve into this bit of information that he had provided me with in detail. However, at this time Mr. Woodard stated that he did not desire to provide me with the identity of the person who had given him that information and he wanted to have time to think about what he was doing. He said, he also indicated to me that he did not want to be held responsible for this crime by himself and for me to give him a few days to consider the possibilities prior to going any further in the interrogation.” Appellant took the stand in his own defense, admitted having been previously convicted of grand larceny, but denied having been in the store on the day of the robbery asserting that he had spent the day at home sleeping. An eighteen-year old niece of appellant’s wife, who lived with them in their Washington, D. C., home, testified that appellant was at home on the day of the robbery when she returned at 3 p.m. and was there until 5 p.m. when he left to meet his wife at a grocery store.

She remembered October 23, 1971, because they were giving a cocktail party the next day, October